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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Men's Swimming and Diving | Jumbos wrap up impressive season

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Despite not having a home pool for the second half of its season, the men's swimming and diving team had a successful year, highlighted by a 4-3 record in dual meets and a fourth place finish at the NESCAC Championships.

"We had a great season, and many great swims as a team," head coach Adam Hoyt said.

Tufts got off to a strong start this year, winning 10 events and beating Middlebury College and Connecticut College in their season-opening tri-meet on Nov. 16. Sophomore Michael Winget won NESCAC Performer of the Week after winning the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke, finishing fourth in the 100-yard butterfly and swimming the opening leg of the 200-yard medley relay, which Tufts won at the meet.

The team suffered its first loss of the year in its only home meet of the season, falling to Keene State 178-122 on Nov. 23. Two weeks later, the Jumbos wrapped up first semester's competitions with a third place finish at the MIT Invitational.

Second semester did not start as well for Tufts, which suffered its worst defeat of the season with an 80-point loss to MIT on Jan. 18. But Tufts regrouped, bouncing back to beat Wesleyan 188-106 the next day. After falling to Boston College in its penultimate meet of the season, Tufts finished strong with a resounding 205-119 win over Wheaton College on Senior Day.

Losing Hamilton Pool posed a challenge for the second half of the season, causing practice times to be moved earlier in the morning and forcing Tufts to train off-campus. While inconvenient, it didn't deter the Jumbos from achieving great results at both the personal and team levels.

"It's impossible to quantify the effect of not having a home pool to train in," Hoyt said. "It's a great accomplishment to achieve lifetime best performances in the pool given the adversity the team faced. All year long the guys had goals they wanted to reach and they were able to achieve many of them."

Many Jumbos dealt with the difficulty with surprising amounts of positivity.

"We looked at it as just another aspect of our training," Winget said. "To us, swimming is swimming and it doesn't matter if it's at Hamilton or another pool."

Tufts made its dedication abundantly clear throughout the NESCAC Championships at Bowdoin. Many Jumbos saved their best performances for last, as the team smashed six school records and finished fourth overall. Nine Jumbos made the NCAA B cuts, six more than the year before.

"It was by far the best NESCACs yet," senior tri-captain Johann Schmidt said.

Schmidt scored a NESCAC-record 578.15 points in the one-meter dive to win his sixth conference championship. He also finished second in the three-meter to freshman teammate Matt Rohrer.

"Having just started diving three-meter this year, I never would have guessed that I would end the season as the NESCAC champion," Rohrer said.

The two divers both qualified for the NCAA Championships in Indianapolis thanks to their strong performances at last weekend's Zone Diving Qualifier. For the second year in a row, Schmidt won the NCAA regional one-meter event and three-meter competition to automatically qualify for Nationals. Rohrer, who finished fifth in the one-meter, qualified by placing third in the three-meter. Each will compete in both events at the NCAA meet taking place from March 19 to March 22.

Head diving coach Brad Snodgrass was happy to see their hard work pay off and expects them to do well at Nationals.

"Both Matt and Johann did an outstanding job and finished as I'd hoped among the top divers," Snodgrass said. "Johann of course won both events, but Matt was equally consistent and competitive and looked like a veteran. They're amazing and I expect both to be in the hunt for the championship."

Winget and freshman William Metcalfe, who set five school records between them at NESCACs, will join them in Indianapolis. After a season full of remarkable individual performances, Hoyt is optimistic the quartet can end the year on a high note.

"We're hopeful that the NCAA Championships will be another highlight for us," Hoyt said.